The Arkansaw traveler., 1887-08-27

kin wash twenty five plates in five minutes, and scrub these floors in less than fifteen. In fact, the name go by tells the whole story. Pm always called the "Lightning Cookee."
 Here he stopped to take breath, and father, although he saw that the man "had a screw loose somewhere" as he afterwards said, told him he might go to work on trial.
 But what is your name?" asked father.
 Il go by the name of Lightning Cookee,'" he answered.
 ''But what shall we call you?"
 "Call me that" said the cookee but if you want something for short, why, sometimes the boys call me Chain Lightning
 And why do you carry buffalo coat on such pleasant day?"
 winters coming, and I can't fool carrying no trunk round with me. This is the easiest way to carry it when l travels round from place to place. It's all the baggage Ive got jest stuff in two or three paper collars, to put on for style now and then, and toss the coat over my arm, and my packing's all done; but l kin jest streak it along the road, though, if the coat is heavy"
 He threw the coat down on a chair, and wiped his face with red handkerchief.
 Well" he said in moment, "l can't stand waiting here. What shall l do?"
 "Perhaps you had better wash the mems dishes now" said the cook and cook and cookee disappeared.
 While we were still laughing at the odd ways of the new -comer, we heard crash in the kitchen, followed by this consoling remark from the cookee {: "Never mind, cook. It's only one plate and cup. It's cheaper to stat the work through, and now and then break a plate, than to dawdle round all day, and to not break none."
 It certainly was not more than five minutes before there came crash, fol- lowed by another Reclamation, evil dently in answer to some remonstrance from the cook.
 "Nothing put platter, sir, Now, what do you suppose that platter cost? Eve had experience in purchas- ing old pieces of crockery, ,"-tather and I laughed, ,-"and tell you that platter never cost over twenty i've cents ill this world. Now, it's very easy to waste twenty ve cents worth of time, sir, by being slow. Better to break something now and then and get your work done. Smart people are bound to break something l like to slat my work through and get to something else, and keep things a-going."
 Poor Lightning Cookcc! On the second day of his labors the cook be- gan to lose faith in his new theory. The fellow had broken six plates, sev- eral cups and saucers, and various other things, and was still "slatting l through" his work, as though noth- ing but what was to be expected had happened.
 "lIe wants to keep the fire going at white heat" said the cook. "He says it's easy to waste the price of the ex- tra wood by having the food only half cooked. He's always in such a hurry that everything goes wrong. He puts the ham into the kettle of dish water, and rcd pepper into the pudding, and dropped lighted kerosene lamp on | the floor"
 Matters went on thus for two or three days. Cookee was given to un- derstand that the cost of the dishes he broke would be deducted from his wages, but still he continued in his course of destruction.
 Everything he touched seemed doomed. As father said, Lightning was an appropriate name for him in more senses than one.
 At last, one day when all the men were in the fields, father came riding | in and told Cookee he must go out to the sheds, near the barn, sack up twenty bags of oats, load them upon the team that stood there, and drive | them out to the men. The seed they had, father said, would not last more than hour.
 Lightning was in his element. He would have to work at great speed to get the seed to the men by the time l they needed it, and it was very inn portant, of course, not to keep them waiting.
 ] "The oats are in the little shed that stands"-father began.
 But Lightning, only calling out, "I know. know.' dashed of, or "streaked it," as he would perhaps have said, toward the sheds.
 The bags were filled in reInarka- bly short time. Usually two men work together to sack oats, one hold ing the bags, the other filling them.
 But all alone, Lightning soon filled ] soI ahnsu xxa0..Ahn x,I